Rita Watson: Gratitude is the secret to keeping a lifelong love alive

Sunday

Mar 23, 2014 at 12:01 AM

Keeping a relationship vital is about choices — the choice to love, to be grateful and to forgive. While it is easy to be grateful during happy times, who wants to be grateful during tense and trying times?...

By Rita Watson

Keeping a relationship vital is about choices — the choice to love, to be grateful and to forgive. While it is easy to be grateful during happy times, who wants to be grateful during tense and trying times? Although it seems unfair, learning to be grateful even during a relationship’s low point may be the secret to lifelong love.

A new research study has confirmed what we all know intuitively — love and gratitude are a potent mix. After volumes have been written on ways to enhance relationships and find the magic that contributes to lifelong love, questions asked of married heterosexual and monogamous couples indicate that gratitude is the “glue” that binds.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are collaborating with the University of California, Davis, on a three-year project for the purpose of “Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude.”

In the love and gratitude study, 77 partners answered relationship questions for two weeks at home. They then made two visits to the lab, where they were asked to be specific about a situation with their spouse for which they felt grateful. They were also rated by four judges who were observing them.

After a thank you, they recorded and rated their feelings. Then they swapped roles so that each of the partners took part in different interactions; that of giving and that of receiving an expression of gratitude.

The results confirmed the work of Robert A. Emmons, professor of psychology at the UC Davis, a leader spearheading gratitude studies from a scientific perspective, along with Hofstra University Prof. Jeffrey Froh.

In an earlier interview with Emmons, he said: “Gratitude is an attitude, not a feeling that can be easily willed.” Even for those not satisfied with life as it is today, he pointed out, “If you go through grateful motions, the emotion of gratitude should be triggered. It is like improving your posture and as a result becoming more energetic and self-confident. Attitude change often follows behavior change. By living the gratitude that we do not necessarily feel, we can begin to feel the gratitude that we live.”

After the couples’ experiment, saliva was tested for the gene CD38, the love hormone trigger, and it was found that “there is something about the genes that control our oxytocin system, which systematically predicts our ability to experience positive moments with someone close to us.”

Furthermore, with expressed gratitude, participants said they felt more loving. According to the report published in February’s Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience journal and Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, “They also reported feeling more peaceful, amused and proud. They perceived their partner as being more understanding, validating, caring and generally more responsive.”